by David Leon Moore, USA TODAY Sports

by David Leon Moore, USA TODAY Sports

The NBA team that started the season with more expectations attached to it than maybe any team in the league entered perhaps its penultimate game of the season with basically no expectations at all.

The injury-depleted and possibly emotionally drained Los Angeles Lakers were going to go down -- down hard -- to the San Antonio Spurs in this one. Everybody, even Lakers die-hards, knew it.

This is what happens when, in pretty much a must-win playoff game, you start Andrew Goudelock and Darius Morris in the backcourt against Tony Parker and the Spurs.

A mild earthquake rolled across Los Angeles during the first quarter but was hardly felt inside Staples Center, where Lakers fans were already shaking their heads at what would become a 3-0 deficit in this Western Conference first-round playoff series after the Spurs had completed a totally predictable 120-89 victory Friday night.

The 31-point margin was the worst home playoff loss in Lakers history.

Game 4, and perhaps the end of this soap opera of a Lakers season, is Sunday in Staples.

"It's been a tough year," Lakers center Dwight Howard said afterward, after the hobbled Bryant had been driven away from the locker room in a golf cart. "But we're not going to make excuses or hold our heads down. And we're not going to quit."

Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni set a relatively low bar when deciding that Morris, who averaged 4.0 points and 1.6 assists in 14.2 minutes in 48 regular season games, would get the start at the point.

"He knows the plays," D'Antoni said.

And it had come to this, too. Before the game, the assembled media, with little else to do, surrounded the locker of Goudelock and peppered the D-League MVP with questions about how his scoring skills -- he averaged 21.1 points in 51 D-League games with Sioux Falls and Rio Grande Valley -- might aid the Lakers in their time of desperation.

He said he'd shoot without fear, without hesitation.

And if he shot without accuracy, the Lakers could always go to their last remaining healthy guard, Chris Duhon, who averaged 2.9 points this season.

Unavailable to the Lakers on this night due to a wide range of injuries were guards Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Steve Blake and Jodie Meeks. Bryant is out for the season with a torn Achilles tendon. Blake was ruled out after a hamstring injury in Game 2. Nash (back/hamstring) and Meeks (ankle) were also unable to go.

The Lakers have coped with one injury problem after another this season to Nash, Dwight Howard, Pau Gasol, Bryant, Metta World Peace and others, but their current situation "is over the top," D'Antoni said.

Not unexpectedly, the new lineup of Lakers guards did not turn out to be the answer, though Goudelock and Morris, after rough starts, acquitted themselves well. Morris scored 24, Goudelock 20.

Morris, Goudelock and Duhon combined for just four points in the first quarter and were a combined 1 for 7 from the field, though the Lakers fans did try to pump Goudelock up, changing "M-V-P" as he shot free throws.

In the second quarter, Goudelock heated up, scoring 12 points on 5-of-6 from the field, including two three-pointers. That kept the Lakers from getting blown out. They were down 55-44 at the half

But defensively, the Lakers were a mess, as they have been much of the season. The Spurs shot 59% in the first half, 61.2% for the game and got 26 points from Tim Duncan and 20 from Parker.

"We've got players out there who haven't played together," Gasol said. "It's hard to get on the same page. We had too many breakdowns, especially on defense."

The 37-year-old Duncan looked as healthy and spry as anyone on the court, playing Howard to a standoff at one point throwing down an impressive one-handed lob dunk.

"He showed again tonight offensively and defensively what a pro he is," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "He plays like he's six or eight years younger than he really is. He's a miracle in my mind."

Said Duncan: "I got a rhythm going early, and the whole night turned out well. We're trying to not give them any momentum at all and to play the whole game the right way."

World Peace might normally have been asked to step up and fill in some of the offensive void created by injuries. But he missed all six of his first-half shots after announcing earlier in the day on Twitter that he had a cyst in his knee drained. He didn't play in the second half.

"He played as hard as he could in the first half dragging his leg around," D'Antoni said. "He couldn't play in the second."

So, there was a lot of pressure on the Lakers' twin towers -- Howard and Gasol -- to try to post the Spurs into submission, and that just didn't happen, though Howard managed to score 25 points and Gasol had a soft triple-double -- 11 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists.

Shortly after Howard was called for charging into Duncan, his fourth foul, and went to the bench late in the third quarter, the Spurs had a 20-point lead.

That was about the time some fans began chanting "We Want Phil."

D'Antoni said his team didn't run out of fight but ran out of gas. What they have left for Sunday's game won't be known until Sunday, Gasol said.

"We'll see how much fight we have in us," he said, "and see if we can not have another 30-point loss at home like tonight."